smiley wrote:Jac, let me make this clear: I am not an atheist, so I don't know why you're getting so angry (and it seems to me accusing me of dishonesty and laziness).
That's fine. I won't pretend to know what you do or don't believe. We haven't exactly had much of a discussion on your personal thoughts. Whether an atheist or not, you are certainly critical--by that, I mean you ask critical questions--of the Christian faith. Beyond that, I assure you that I'm not now, nor ever have been, angry. Life's too short to get mad at anybody for an internet discussion. I don't blame you for thinking I may have been. My answers to you have certainly been short, but understand they are short for pragmatic reasons. I've been doing this for over a decade. I've learned that long, drawn out discussions filled with fluff and pleasantries don't do much for anyone. At the end of the day (or month, or however long these conversations go), these are the conclusions we end up reaching, anyway. I'm just trying to save us both time so we can both be very clear about where we stand on the issues, including what we think the issues are.[/quote]
So, I'm merely entertaining this argument now because it has been, among other things, causing me doubts lately. So I thought a conversation with you might be a good chance to eliminate them. No need to get so emotional.
Again, I'm hardly emotional. You can take that for what it is worth. If you think I might be in possession of some facts and resources you've not had the liberty of considering, and you think those facts and resources will help you come to a more informed belief system, then I'm all up for talking as much as you want. I'm certainly not under the illusion I'm going to change your mind. As I've said a million times before on these forums: no one has ever changed anyone's mind. We change our own. And as I've told you previously, if I thought you weren't sincere in your questions, I wouldn't bother with you, because, again, life is short, and I have better things to do with my time then offer my thoughts on issues with someone who doesn't care about them. I'm sure you feel the same way.
smiley wrote:Jac3510 wrote:Anyone who sits down and thinks about the essence of being is perfectly capable of seeing the self-existence of God.
You're just not thinking very widely about this.
How about cavemen who lived thousands of years ago? How are they supposed to think deeply about "the essence of being"? It's easy for you, who has read the likes of Aquinas and Plato to talk.
I can think of numerous other circumstances where people just aren't in a position to think about the existence of God, or do not have sufficient information to make a rational conclusion. For example, in the first half of the 20th century (until Plantinga's Free Will defense), the problem of evil was a major obstacle to belief in a loving God to a great deal of people, causing what is arguably a rational non-belief. So, I think you're really oversimplifying it.
On the contrary, I've thought as widely about this as the examples you've suggested here, and them still wider. How about the cavemen who lived thousands of years ago? It appears that they were all theists, doesn't it? As does EVERY ancient culture we find. That is a curious fact about anthropology . . . we've never found a primitive atheist culture. Of course, Darwinians have long argued that is for evolutionary reasons - that any culture's first attempt to understand the world around them progresses from fetishism to animism to polytheism to monotheism and, finally, the science and ultimately atheism. In any case, since all of these cultures already believe in God, it's hardly necessary for them to think deeply about the essence of being.
I find it an interesting . . . coincidence . . . that when men discovered philosophy and tried to use it to disprove God, then the philosophical evidence for God was there, and as soon as they tried to use science to disprove God, that, amazingly, the scientific evidence presented itself . . .
Further, do you really think that the problem of evil has only just been responded to by Plantinga? Have you not read the book of Job? Christians have been answering the question for two thousand years. In any case, the PoE is not, and has never been, rational. It's emotional. Schellenberg's argument, though, looks at rational disbelief. "Bad things happened to me, so God must not exist!" isn't a rational argument. If that's all you want, I can give you LOTS of emotional arguments . . .
"I'm not rich, so . . ."
"I'm not happy, so . . ."
"I don't like Hell, so . . ."
"I want to have sex with whoever I want, so . . ."
Is Schellenberg really going to suggest that a loving God would never allow
emotional reactions against God's existence? If that's his argument, then I think we can both laugh at it and move on.
smiley wrote:Jac3510 wrote:Further, atheism is only in fashion in the developed world. Ironically enough, you are viewed as totally unreasonable and downright foolish in those "uneducated" parts of the world. Focusing, then, on the developed world, where you think you have the luxury of an education that has made is reasonable to doubt God's existence, sadly for you, this same developed world offers you all the education you desire to see that God's existence is, in fact, self-evident. You only have yourself to blame.
Firstly, I'm not talking about myself here.
Secondly, let us say that reasonable non-belief in God in the modern world doesn't exist (not necessarily true, however).
But the greater problem today is religious pluralism. It's not enough to believe in God, you have to believe in Jesus Christ. Now I know you will say that historical evidence for the resurrection makes non-belief unreasonable (which I don't think is
necessarily true), let me make two points: 1) Not everyone has the evidence available to them. 2) Some other religions like Hindusim have evidence for their own miracles like the Hindu milk miracle, something which can arguably cause reasonable non-belief.
In the first place, every other religion is self-contradictory. It just is. Eastern religions deny the law of non-contradiction. Ergo, to hold that they are "true" is not to have a REASONABLE doubt. Islam has an incoherent concept of God (how can Allah be both merciful and just?). In the second place, Schellenberg's argument is against theism, not Christianity specifically. His second premise is not that a loving God wouldn't allow people to not be Christian (by rejecting Jesus). It's that a loving God wouldn't allow rational non-belief in His existence.
Now, if his thinking behind that premise is that a loving God wouldn't allow people to be reasonable
and still go to Hell, well now he has the problem that Gabe already pointed out: belief in God isn't sufficient to save, anyway, so he needs to restate his entire argument. But try to phrase it so that God wouldn't allow people to not believe in Jesus, and I'm sure you can start seeing the slippery slope.
smiley wrote:Jac3510 wrote:I do realize that blaming God is much more emotionally satisfying, and it is human nature. Adam did it when confronted with his first sin. Far from doing anything new, you're just repeating the same mistake that people have been making, and believers have recognized and pointed out, since time began. There really is nothing new under the sun.
Again, I'm not talking about myself and furthermore, you can not rationally deny that there are periods in history where disbelief in God or Jesus would not be unreasonable.
You are right. I am capable of not denying that there are periods in history where disbelief in God or Jesus wasn't unreasonable . . .
Seriously, though, yes, I do deny it. It has NEVER been reasonable to deny the existence of God. EVER. That's what makes this entire argument, to me, absolutely ridiculous. Atheists are just using it to justify their non-belief. We give them tons of reasons to believe, they ignore them, and then say, "Well, I at least have reason to disbelieve, and that proves God doesn't exist. Na-na-na-na-na-na."
God's existence is obvious. It is now. It always has been. To everyone. I completely understand why atheists want to say that their arguments are reasonable. The sad truth for them is that they aren't.
smiley wrote:Jac3510 wrote:I'm sure you do. And yes, I am honestly going to say that there are no honest, truth-seeking professional atheist philosophers/scientists/historians out there. I've read too many of those types. You have idiotic statements coming from them like "I don't believe in God and I hate Him."
Now really, is that true? How many professional atheists have you met?
Since I am in academia, quite a few. Probably more than most people I know.
Firstly, I know many educated atheists who have left the faith for purely intellectual reasons (I can link you to their sites if you think I'm twisting things).
There is a difference in intellectual and reasonable, and it doesn't do you any good to say that they've left for reasonable reasons, because now you are just begging the question.
Secondly, many outspoken Christian theists admit that traditional arguments for God's existence are not so coercive they can leave no reasonable doubt. For example, William Lane Craig admits this openly, but he still thinks disbelief is irrational because of rejection of the Holy Spirit (in other words, denying the validity of religious experiences). Alvin Plantinga, similarly, says that he doesn't find the traditional arguments to be "very powerful", so he too, believes on the basis of personal experience.
And I'm one of the people who consistently say that Craig is wrong. If I were an atheist arguing against Craig, I would attack his notion of God as incoherent. Craig rejects the doctrine of divine simplicity, which, I--and pretty much all of classical theism--thinks is utterly incoherent. In short, Craig (and Plantinga) and I come from two very different schools of thought. I am a Thomist. I embrace classical theism. Craig rejects it. Most apologists do these days. Without going off on a tangent, I happen to think its because they are more interested in the Kalaam cosmological argument, which doesn't work in a standard Thomistic framework.
Anyway, so I have no doubt that you can find me some very famous Christians who are fine with the idea that disbelief can be reasonable. I am not one of them, and just because famous Christians think it doesn't make it so. To appeal to them is either an appeal to authority or ad populum, neither of which is very rational.
Thirdly, did you know that only about 15% contemporary philosophers are theists? Do you think that all the rest are simply living in denial?
Frankly, I'm surprised it is that high. The vast majority of contemporary philosophers don't understand philosophy. Before you go and write me off as an arrogant jerk who clearly thinks he is better than everyone else, let me explain:
Philosophy, fundamentally, is concerned with the question, "What is reality?" Everything else is a subset of that. Epistemology wants to know how we know reality. Linguistics wants to know how we communicate it. The myriads of "philosophies of" . . . the philosophy of science, the philosophy of art, the philosophy of music, etc. . . . are concerned with those narrow aspects of reality. But ask yourself: what is the
subject of Philosophy with a capital P? What is the one thing that all of reality--both real and possible--have in common? It is 'being.' Philosophy, properly speaking, is the study of being, which is also called metaphysics. It is what Aristotle called the First Philosophy.
The VAST majority of philosophers today, however, adhere to a school of thought called Analytic Philosophy as opposed to Classical Philosophy. I'd recommend to you the book
Two Logics by Henry Veatch for more on that. Suffice it to say here that the philosophy practiced today is NOT philosophy, because it does not study being. In fact, every since Hume, metaphysics has been considered dead. In other words, "philosophers" stopped doing philosophy in the 1700s.What they are doing today is a bad combination of linguistics, mathematics, and logic. I'd further point you to a book called
The Unity of Philosophical Experience by Etienne Gilson. He proves, historically, that every time we've confused any discipline with metaphysics, whether it is mathematics (as in Descarte), physics (as in Kant), sociology (as in Comte), etc., we end up with a complete and total loss of philosophy and also end up in skepticism and moralism--which, might I add, is exactly what we are experiencing today. Compte saw this coming. He tried to warn John Stuart Mill about it, but Mill wouldn't listen . . . so now we live in a world deeply fragmented by super specialists in their field, in which no one is capable of presenting a unified worldview.
They can't and never will, because they have denied their First Philosophy. And since it is First Philosophy that absolutely proves that God exists, I am hardly surprised that most philosophers are not theists. They aren't philosophers at all anymore than Descarte was (he was a mathematician).
So, again, there are NO informed, honest atheists. It's hardly a surprising statement . . . perhaps to atheists, but only because they are indignant about it. But being indignant doesn't change facts.
smiley wrote:Jac3510 wrote:So I'm sorry if it is at all offensive to you. It isn't intended to be. But no, there are NO honest, educated atheists out there. There are plenty of honest atheists. They are just ignorant of the facts. There are plenty of atheists who are not ignorant of the facts. They are dishonest. The former are lazy and their disbelief is their own fault. The latter are wicked, and their disbelief is also their own fault.
With all due respect, I think you're just greatly overexaggerating the supposed dishonesty of atheists.
And with all due respect, I don't think you've properly studied the issues. Nor have the vast majority of atheists. The ones who have, though, as few and far between as they are,
are dishonest.
On a final note, even if a person--philosopher or not--has never come across a proper philosophical argument for God's existence, there are still a great many reasons to believe in God. The moment you come across ONE of them, and then you reject it, you have become unreasonable. A typical problem in modern culture is that we've stopped making sure that our worldviews are coherent. We have no problem accepting self-contradictions in our thinking. So we have an argument or two that give us great reason to believe in God (Craig's Kalaam Argument is one example), and we can't refute it, but we shelve it, because we don't
want to believe. The evidence is there. We just refuse to follow it to its conclusion. That is dishonest.
I hope, then, that these discussions will give you the perspectives and information you need to do the actual research that you overcome your ignorance of the facts and are then faced with the same choice as everyone else: will you submit to the evidence or not? Will you be reasonable or not?
Thx.